Five Things Felicity Smoak Is Not
by one.twilight.sun
Summary: Or the one thing she really only needs to be.


**Author's Note: Breaking into the **_**Arrow**_** fandom! I've just been immersing myself in fic and felt the need to add my own. I don't know where this came from, but here I give to you to read and perhaps enjoy. No beta so all mistakes are mine.**

v.

The club barely missed her smooth cheek as she ducked to the left. She snapped her arm up, catching the weapon was it swung past, using the downward motion to wrench it out of the guard's grasp. Before the stunned man could do more than gape, she had the club reversed and slamming into his torso, sending him back a foot. Relentlessly she pursued him, leg coming up in a roundhouse kick, knocking him out and sending him to the floor.

Breathing hard, she took in her surroundings. Four bodies lay unconscious around her. The door on the opposite wall held no further obstacles.

With a smile, she dropped the club and straightened up. She gave an unconscious toss of her hair as the heels of her black boots clicked against the marble floor. Getting into the vault of Queen Consolidated had been easier done than said. The people who'd hired her seemed to have given more credence to QC's security than was actually warranted.

Slipping her phone out of her pocket, she connected up to the security system, running the program to break the encryption. It wasn't going to take more than 30 seconds to break the lock and then she was in, able to grab the needed documents, and out before anyone was due to check in. Though it seemed simple, Felicity knew better than to let her guard down. Which was the only reason she was able to catch the slight shift in the air and move out of the way before the arrow landed in the spot she'd just been standing in.

Arms up in a defensive position, blades in hand, she turned to find the one man who might possibly be able to stop her.

"Hello, Arrow," she greeted, a fierce grin on her face.

iv.

It was always the same.

People thought that the life of the idle rich was something to strive for. Those less fortunate worked the skin off their fingers, skimped and saved, sacrificed—for what? Even those who somehow managed to make it to a more comfortable financial security soon found that having money wasn't everything. There was still the possibility of losing it all in a blink of an eye—to vice, to underhanded deals, to legal battles. Life was a fight for your life, no matter where you were socially.

Felicity took a sip of the red wine in front of her, surveying the pulsing crowd of Verdant. The music's deep bass seemed to echo in her bones. If she'd been any other girl, she'd be out there, moving in time to the rhythm that called.

Call it boredom, ennui, or maybe the right word was depression, but Felicity Smoak was _done _with her life. Born into money, raised in the "right" schools, set on the golden path with her parents' high expectations, one would have expected her to have turned out alright. But she was far from it.

Felicity was a mess.

She'd not even bothered with trying to learn at school, knowing that her father would indulge her and buy her diploma if needed. She'd spent her younger years with a bottle in one hand, a cigarette in another, and a willing boy to keep her company. Out of school, her life hadn't changed much other than the fact that now she could do those things legally.

Her days were a haze of sleeping the morning away, stumbling to shops or the salon, and the nights were a blur of the newest restaurant, the latest club, the hottest bar, and whoever wanted to live off of her that night.

Tonight was a rare night in that one of those so called "friends" weren't hanging onto her arm, trying to impress her or just get up her skirt. It didn't matter anyway. Whether she was surrounded by people or sitting by herself, the feeling was the same. She was alone and the world was gray around her.

She felt a nudge at her elbow as a man came to sit beside her, mimicking her position of watching the crowd. She fought the urge to move her arm away and ignored him.

"It looks like you could use something to make your life a little more exciting," he stated, his voice pitched at what she guessed was supposed to be a sexy tone.

She slanted him a look, letting part of her annoyance show. "Maybe, but you're not going to be the one to do anything about it."

He chuckled, bringing his hand farthest away from her over and placing a plastic bag at her elbow. She had a moment's curiosity, glancing down at the black and green pills.

"Vertigo," his tone took on a smugger color, seeing that he had her attention, "brings you to a high that lasts, makes the world a lighter place for just that while. I'll give it to you as a gift, Felicity Smoak."

Her eyes shot up to the dealer's dark gaze. His was not a trustworthy face, but given that her life just seemed to run in the same unending circuit, she was getting a bit desperate for _some _sort of change.

She turned towards the man, picking up the bag of pills. "Vertigo."

His dark head bent nearer to her, a calculating smile on his face. His mouth opened—probably to give some witty quip—and a hand closed over his chin, jerking him up to face the owner of said hand. Felicity could only see the back of his well-tailored suit and the dark blonde hair. But she could hear him perfectly fine.

"Get out." The voice was more akin to a growl than anything else. Felicity felt something respond in her, not sure if it was fear or desire.

"Hey, Queen, I'm just trying to make the ladies here have a better time," the shorter man managed to protest though the grip on his face tightened. He wasn't able to help the wince across his eyes.

"You'll have a hard time doing that in the all-men's club you're about to join," Oliver Queen retorted as he tossed the man into the waiting hands of a bouncer who pulled him into the crowd.

He turned his back on him dismissively, catching Felicity's gaze. She found that she was unconsciously holding her breath as his hand closed over hers, sending sparks up her arm. Slowly, he unwrapped her fingers from the small plastic bag, removing the drugs from her grasp and pocketing it. All without breaking eye contact. His hand remained on hers.

"Felicity," he said, the quiet intensity in his voice doing more to break her out of the heaviness that had wrapped itself around her for too long. While she'd expected to see him at some point since his return from that island, enough months had passed that she felt that she wouldn't have much of a reaction to him.

She was wrong.

She hoped that he couldn't feel the increased flutter of her pulse. Perhaps this deadness inside had nothing to do with the people that had been in her life, but maybe it had to do with the one person who hadn't been. The man she'd never thought she'd see again.

iii.

"So you see, Mr. Queen, with your assets stretched as it is, your company will soon face bankruptcy unless you find additional revenue or an investor willing to support a company with such a shoddy image."

Her closing statement was met with stony silence. Leaning back in the leather chair, she let her perfectly manicured nails tap a beat along the conference room table. To most, it would look like a nervous gesture. On Felicity, the action was almost ominous, like the countdown towards a final blow.

She eyed the new CEO of Queen Consolidated. His face was set in a stiff mask, a mask that she recognized, having donned one too many times to count. His blue eyes were narrowed on her, processing the information she'd just revealed. Oliver Queen shouldn't have left his company ripe for the taking following the Quake. She understood that he and his family had gone through much trauma in the aftermath, but to disappear like he had for months—mentally, she shook her head. It just wasn't good business. And Felicity Smoak was all about business.

Her hand stilled as she saw that Queen had reached a decision.

A corner of his mouth had quirked up in something she couldn't quite call a smile.

"You're right."

The simple words caught her off guard. From what she'd read about Oliver Queen, he was as stubborn as anyone born with the means to get whatever he wanted at a snap of his fingers. His rise in his company was so different from hers. Nepotism on his part, dedication and hard work on hers.

The steel in his gaze should've alerted her to the fact that he wasn't actually giving up.

ii.

It was impossible to mistake the silent presence behind her for anyone other than him.

She whipped around, blonde ponytail flashing in the murky light, gun trained on the dark figure standing in the shadows. "Vigilante."

There was nothing that indicated that he was at all intimidated by the firearm pointed in his direction. He was probably very used to that now, given his line of work. It was strange how they seemed to be working for the same side, yet went about it on opposite sides of the line. He was a law unto himself while she followed and enforced the law as set by others. She tried not to think that his method might be the more effective one in this city, but it was hard not to be seduced by the apparent freedom he exercised.

_Damn it. _

"Seduce" and other similar words were not to enter her thoughts in relation to the vigilante at all. _At all, Smoak_, she fiercely reminded herself.

The click of what she took to be his voice modulator brought her out of her internal scolding. "Detective, there's been a development on the Tollers Tenement site. The ones responsible for switching the standard building materials out for inferior quality ones have been stopped."

Slowly she brought her gun back to its holster. "How? You arrowed them into the next life?" She couldn't help the disgust that colored her tone. As much as she may secretly admire the work that the vigilante did, she couldn't condone his being the judge _and_ the executioner. It not only went beyond her morals as a cop, but even her own deeply ingrained code. She opened her mouth to tell him as much when his low voice brought her up short.

"No."

"No?" Her disbelief was clear.

"I'm trying something new," he replied, a rare note of amusement in his tone. She squinted at him, hoping to get some better glimpse at his features, though she knew by now that was next to impossible. The man only revealed what he wanted to reveal. She wasn't even sure why he chose her as his police liaison, when he deigned to coordinate with local authorities.

He turned, letting the light fall on the lower half of his face, the stubble on his skin accentuating the small tilt of his lips. The vigilante was smiling at her. Now she'd seen it all.

It wasn't until that small smile turned into a full-blown grin before he shot a rappelling arrow up at the nearest building and disappeared did she realize that she'd said that aloud.

She fought the urge to smack her head against the wall next to her.

i.

He barely restrained himself from hissing in pain as she cleaned around the cut in his lower back. 1) It wasn't even that deep of a cut, as compared to his other scars; and 2) he didn't want to make her even more worried about the fact that he'd been injured – at least not more than she already was.

"Really, Oliver," she said as she started dressing his wound, her fingers communicating her annoyance and worry in the less than delicate handling she was doing, "Digg was nearly to your position when you decided to barge in on the Triad poker night. Why couldn't you have waited? It wasn't as if they were about to kill someone, unless they planned on killing one of their own which would have been convenient for us because one less Triad member, means one less Triad member. And wouldn't that make them a 'Duo' instead of a 'Triad' at that point? But I guess—"

"Felicity," he cut her off on a huff of a laugh as her rambling distracted her, pausing her in her motions, one small hand burning hot between his shoulder blades and the other absently stroking over the bandages she'd placed on his cut. As much as he enjoyed being near her, he hadn't slept in over 24 hours, hadn't eaten since lunch, had just barely gotten out of a fight with eight Chinese mob members skilled in hand-to-hand, and his attention and control were quickly fraying. It would be very easy for him to just turn around, take her wrists in his hands, pull her up against him, and shut her up with his lips on hers. The soft slide of skin against skin, the warm trail he could trace along her jaw, capturing her soft gasps as his hands came up—

"Oliver!" Her sharp tone pulled him to reality. His eyes opened to find her concerned blue gaze on his. He pulled back with a start. She was too close, but she wouldn't let him go far. One hand came up to his face, thumb running across his cheekbones. He wondered if she could feel his pulse pick up.

"Hey, are you okay?" Her voice was low.

Unable to help himself, he brought his own hand up to cover hers, his thumb running across her pulse. He didn't miss the hitch in her breath, his eyes focusing on her parted lips.

"Fine. I'm fine," he croaked out, though spacing out was not something he usually did. He made himself drop his hand and lean back. This touching, giving comfort to one another, was becoming more the norm than not, and he didn't think it was a good idea, for either of them.

Her eyebrows raised in a dubious expression, but she let her hand fall away as well, fingers curling in on themselves as if to maintain the feeling of his skin.

He cleared his throat, trying to dispel the tension between them. "A guard snuck up behind me which brought the others out to investigate the fight. I would've waited for Digg otherwise."

He wasn't the type to explain himself, with the exception seeming to be Felicity. She'd always held him accountable from the start, made him look at his actions and how they affected others, not just him. Her opinion had come to matter to him.

He got up, only to stumble as his head spun. Her petite frame tucked itself under one of his shoulders, barely catching him before he got his feet under him. She made a noise that he would've catalogued as a grunt on another person, but it didn't describe how adorable it sounded coming from her.

_Adorable_? Not a word that normally entered his vocabulary, but really the only thing that could be used to describe Felicity at times. He had many other words drift across his mind, words that he would never say out loud, and he only thought of them when he was too exhausted to control the direction of his thoughts.

She steered him to the couch and he fell into it gratefully. Not even needing to be pushed down into a prone position, he settled himself as best as he could on his uninjured side. She stepped away and came back with a blanket she'd taken to keeping in the Foundry since she'd found him asleep on the same couch more than once.

"Digg should be back in 20 minutes with food so we have time to sleep—and by 'we' I mean 'you,' as in _you _have time to sleep and I—I will be at my computers. Being silent."

He only smiled at her fumble and took the blanket from her hands, draping it over himself. Her hand came to rest on his shoulder, ostensibly to straighten it out over him before gently trailing away as she turned to head back to her computers. He watched her with eyes that were becoming heavier by the second.

She settled at her desk, turning a little to check on him with a smile. "I'll see if I can get any further leads on the Triad's current activities." She stuck one scolding finger up in his direction. "But I'm only going to tell you _after _you've eaten and had at least 7 hours of sleep…because I know I can't make you do more." She mumbled the last under her breath.

He tried to nod in response, but failed because his eyes closed and a moment later he heard the clicking of the keyboard as she started up her computer. Safety was something he could only remember feeling around her. While Felicity Smoak wasn't a fighter or an expert marksman trained to take out a man 18 different ways, to him, the only thing she needed to be was herself and he knew he was safe.


End file.
